News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-05-05
FARM AND GARDEN.
Seasonable and Practicable Notes
About Farm Work.

Now that the time for sowing oats has
come, and is coming for planting corn,
it is well for farmers TO remember the
old formula for the prevention of smut
in the crop, viz, to dissolve four ounces
Of sulphate of copper in a gallon Of
water, and to thoroughly moisten five
bushels of the seed of small grain i'll it;
for corn half this quantity would be
sufficient. This precaution has been
found perfectly effective, and has been
IN use, we think, about 80 years, ut
least, for nearly that time the writer has
known of it, and has used it for more
than 30 years. 1t will be very satisfac-
tory to farmers to know that notwith-
standing the antiquity of this preserve
tive against smut in grain the New York
State experiment station has been trying
it, and having found it as effective now
as it has been heretofore, recommend its
use. Caustic potash, sold in the stores
as concentrated lye, is also recon-
mended; but we must object to the state
ment that caustic I've can be made by
teaching wood ashes, for the lye thus
made is not caustic, but is simply car
Donate of potash, unless quicllime is
used in the teaching to take up this acid,
for which it has the stronger affinity,
and so leave the potash in a free and
caustic state. We have found this same
application to ''secd' potatoes a safe
guard against the potato rot, also para
site fungus upon this crop, as smut is
upon oats, wheat and corn.
Many farmers can procure bones at u
very moderate price from local butchers.
These bones will make a perfect and
complete fertilizer if treated in this way,
If unleached wood ashes can be procur-
ed, quantity of these are placed in
pit in the ground two or three feet deep
III alternate layers with the bones, so
placed that the bones are exposed thor
oughly to the action of the ashes.
Among the ashes is mixed evenly an
equal quantity of quicklime. This is
important, for the action of the lime is
to take the carbonic acid from the ashes
and leave the potash in them in caus-
tic condition. In this state the potash
quickly reduces the bones to soft and
friable condition so that in two months
the whole mass may be crumbled to %
fine powder. The resulting mass con-
tains all the phosphate of lime of the
bones in a useful condition, retains the
nitrogen of the gelatine of the bones
and of the meat upon them, and has the
potash and lime and phosphoric acid of
the ashes and the lime besides, thus fur
nishin9 every useful element of plant
food in a very convenient form. If no
wood ashes can be procured the common
carbonate of potash, the potashes Of
commerce can be procured, or the chlor-
ate of potash and the German potash
salts may be used if the lime is added as
above mentioned.
OATS SEEDING.-The usual quantity
OF oats sown per acre is two and one-half
bushels. This we think is too much,
one and one-half bushels is enough if
the sowing is early, as the plants litter
and throw up number of stalks, as
many as six or seven under favorable
circumstances When the soil is good
one bushel sown at the earliest oppor-
tunity has given as large yield as three
or four bushels sOwn month later.
Oats require a long season of growth and
a cool soil, hence early sowing is impor-
tant and conducive to large yield of
heavy grain. If grass and clover seed
are sown with the oats, one and one-half
bushels per acre is quite enough. There
are many kinds Of good oats now in the
market, Clydesdale or Scotch oats, the
old Irish potato oat, black Tartarian,
Probstein's white Poland and Pringle's
triIInI,b are oil eycellaOt kinds